


First impressions

by TatianaMalfoy



Series: Call it what you want [4]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Drugging, F/M, Graphic Violence, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Poetics about Alfie Solomons, Strong Language, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-07
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-18 05:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28612692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TatianaMalfoy/pseuds/TatianaMalfoy
Summary: This is how Alfie and Reader first met.
Relationships: Alfie Solomons/Reader, Alfie Solomons/You
Series: Call it what you want [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2074353
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38





	First impressions

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! Happy New Year!
> 
> I hope you like this and think about leaving a comment. I really loved writing this as Alfie is special to me and he deserves more. 
> 
> This was written on a phone so there might be some mistakes I haven't caught. Sorry!
> 
> Enjoy!

She sat down on one of the stools at the bar and nodded in the bartender's direction when he motioned that he would be with her in a second.

Though the pub had changed hands since the last time she had been there, it still had part of that old charm. The bartender was not one she had seen the few times she and the Shelbys had been there and neither was the huge guy that was keeping guard at the door.

"What'll be, Miss?" the bartender asks her, slightly shouting to be heard over the noise.

"Glass of whiskey. Neat, please."

"Coming right up," he nods and turns his back to her to fix her drink.

Out of the old habit of keeping an eye on the person who was making her drink if she didn't know them, she watched him through the mirror above the bar. His movements were also drawing her attention as his head kept trying to look in her direction and he kept stopping himself from doing so.

Her hand went to move towards her head to remove the razor edged hat and use it, but remembered at the last second that she didn't have it anymore. It made her feel naked in a way. It would take her a while to get used to not having the hat anymore.

As she pretended to be none the wiser, she kept looking around, but she let her legs fall apart and discretely lifted one end of the skirt she was wearing, removing the knife from her thigh and hiding it underneath the sleeve of her button down, the sharp silver tip catching the light of the pub if she moved in a certain way. 

"Need anything else, Miss?" he asks her as he sets the drink down in front of her.

She smiles sweetly and curls the pointer finger of her empty hand in his direction, making him lean down on the bar and lower his head in her direction.

"How about you be a good boy and pour me one more drink, huh? This time without the snow I didn't ask for!"

He stiffened, but before he could move and open his mouth to deny it or to call for someone, she let the knife travel down her sleeve and impaled his hand, effectively trapping him to the bar, the blood rapidly spreading on the dark surface.

His howls of pain made the music stop and everybody turned in their direction to see what had happened. As more people realized that the bartender was desperately trying to free his hand from the bar and the knife that was keeping him there, discussions slowly became more hushed until they stopped alltogether. For a few moments, the only noises that could be heard were the painful ones coming from the bartender and her heels kicking the legs of her stool.

As the guy at the door started making his way towards her, she leaned over the bar and grabbed the whiskey bottle he had used and took a swig. Alcohol was a disinfectant after all and she doubted she would catch anything from doing that.

The guy was whimpering next to her and was trying to take out the knife, but the special razored blade made it quite impossible. And once someone would take it out, it would come out with a lot of meat and nerves from inside his hand. If he lived through the night, he would be lucky if he ever got to hold a pen in that hand as the nerves would be shot to hell...No pun intended since she had used a knife and not a gun.

From the opposite direction, a tall but skinny man was rapidly approaching her, looking as if he wanted to be anywhere but there. Definetely not the boss then.

"Just what in the world do you think you're doing?" bellowed the guard in her direction when he got there.

The skinny man shook his head in his directly and the guy quickly backed off. Ok. So maybe not the big boss. Just a little one then.

"Right this way, Miss!" 

She got off the stool and took a few steps, bottle in hand, before she turned back to the bar and patted the arm that was turning whiter by the second. "You be good, ok? I'll be back soon to recover my knife. It better be in the same fucking condition otherwise I'm gonna use his brother to gouge out your wife's eyes. Nice wedding ring, by the way. Is your wife aware of your part time activities?"

She could swear she heard a gruff snort coming from somewhere in tbe room, but as she hurried her steps to catch up to the skinny guy, she didn't have time to turn around and check.

As Y/N followed the man, she started recognizing the way. So the new boss kept the office. She didn't see the need to tell him she knew the way the couple of times she saw him turn around to check if she was still following him.

They entered the office without knocking and the guy motioned for her to take a sit in front of one of the desks, while he sat down behind the second desk in the office. Was the pub bought by brothers? She started running through all of the families she knew in London that were run by brothers and the only ones she could come up with were the Italians. And this guy couldn't be further away from being Italian if he tried.

"Hmm...not that this hasn't been interesting, but how much longer are we gonna stay here? As I said, I'm getting that knife back one way or another and I don't need those idiots back there getting any ideas and try to take it out and ruin in!"

The door opened and a giant man came in. His face had been taken over by a thick and gorgeous beard and his eyes were covered by the wide brim of his hat. His hands, big and strong and calloused, covered in chunky gold rings. A tattoo of a crown on both of them. The image was completed by the cane he used to walk and what could have easily been a small cow and not a dog walking by his side.

So the pub had been bought by Alfie fucking Solomons. Ok, she would play then. This was bound to be fun.

"Now who are you, lass, and why did you feel the need to maim the bartender?"

Oh yeah, it had been his gruff voice she had heard out there. It brought chills through her whole body.

She raised an eyebrow and told him her name.

"Fuckin' 'ell, mate! You the Brummie lass that runs with the fuckin' Shelbys. What business do ya 'ave 'ere?"

Y/N bit back the acidic reply and decided to play stupid.

"You da new boss, then?"

"Nah, lass. That's be the one over there," he answered her, pointing at the other man and sitting down at the desk in front of which she was sat. 

The dog quickly following him and laid down at his feet, letting out a heavy sigh as he found a comfortable position.

So that's how he wanted to play it? However, she couldn't help the snort that left her if she tried.

"Really? So you clearly know who I am just by my name. And you take me for a stupid woman who didn't do her homework?!? Alfie Solomons, I'm disappointed."

She pouted at him and looked at him from beneath her lashes. It was the moment Alfie knew this was the woman he would marry; who would have his children and alongside whom he would grow old. 

He let his head fall back and a hearty laugh broke free from his chest. Y/N was mesmerized by the picture he painted. He was a beast of a man if even a quarter of the rumors she had heard about him were true. He was larger than life. Yet, the same hands he used to choke the life out of someone were now caressing the dog as an apology for having disturbed him with his loud laughter and body shakes. The way the dog writhed under the pleasant touches almost made her jealous. She was almost aching to feel him touch her with the same reverence.

He finally took his hat off and Y/N was struck silent as she finally had the complete picture. The black and white photo she had seen of him hadn't done him any justice at all. It had been the photo they had taken for his army file and while he painted a pretty picture a few years back, it didn't hold a candle next to the man that stood in front of her now. A thick brown mop of hair and a pair of stricking eyes. A bluegreen-ish colour that took her breath away. Almost like sea foam if you would. While Tommy's eyes were thick ice and Arthur's were a hollowed cave of despair, Alfie's eyes seemed to be a warm embrace. 

When Alfie first took her on a walk down the beach in Margate, she knew stubborn Alfie had found a way to keep his beloved sea with him anywhere he went. He somehow managed to turn his eyes into a mirror of those waters so he could gaze them everytime he looked into a mirror. If someone could do it, it was this stubborn asshole.

Oh, she wasn't deluding herself into paiting him a Price Charming. Not at all. She was even half curious to see those eyes lose their warmth and see their color when Alfie was raging mad. She wanted to see the tranquil sea in his eyes turn into a deadly storm. Call it the crazy gypsy part of her. 

"That's fair. I heard quite a few things about you, lass. Quite a few. How you and Polly Gray managed to keep that company going while them Shelbys were at war. I should have expected you to at least recognize my name if not my ugly mug. But I thought maybe the rumors were exagerated...I see now that they're not!"

She didn't share his opinion that his mug was ugly. But she kept it to herself.

"How come you bought this fine establishment, Mr. Solomons?" 

He snorts as he hears the name falling from her lips.

"None 'a that Mr. Solomons shit, lass. Just call me Alfie, will ya, treacle?"

"I will if you stop calling me lass or treacle or God knows what else your mind can come up with."

She could swear his lips formed a pout but she wasn't familiar enough with his face to spot it under that beard. But he sighed, utterly despondent and nodded.

"So, Y/N," he started, making sure to emphasize her name, "did ya run out of bartenders to stab down in Birmingham and decided to try ya luck in London?"

It didn't escape her mind that he didn't reply to her question, but she let it slide. London wasn't even close to being Peaky teritory, and while she did know a few people around town, she couldn't go around putting her nose in other people's business ventures. That was a sure way to end up belly up in the Thames.

"Well, Alfie. Your man decided that my whiskey needed an extra kick to it...some snow I didn't ask for. Is this the kinda of place you run? Cause if you do...we might have a problem."

The skinny man had finally pretented to stop writing something on the papers in front of him.

For his part, Alfie had become rigid and his eyes looked to be taken over by a storm. Looks she might end up getting her wish after all.

"Are you sure?" he barked at her, but he was already getting up from the desk.

"Aye, Alfie. There are mirrors over the bar. I always watch the people who make my drinks. Such is life for a woman I guess...And also, he didn't give the snow a chance to fully dissolve either. He put the glass in front of me while the liquid was still cloudy. Rooky mistake."

He cracked his knuckles and snarled, eyes nearly black.

"This is not something I was aware of. I kept the old employees as they seemed to know what they were doing. A mistake I won't do again. I don't need that kind of fuckery in me own place." 

He put his hat back on, the dog now fully alert and looking around for something or someone to use a chew toy. 

"Ollie! You make sure you take Y/N home or whereever she is staying. I'll deal with that piece of shit!"

"Now wait a goddamn minute, Solomons. I don't need ya to play knight for me. That's me fucking knife out there and I'm getting it back!"

"Ya done?" He asks her, raising his brow, half amused but still raging mad. "Ollie, take her home. Kicking and screaming if you have to. I'll return your knife tomorrow! I have some clean up I need to do around here!"

With that he turned his back to her and made his way out of the office, grumbling about pieces of shit and back pains and was the dog's name Cyril? 

She turned to the man, Ollie, as he gathered the stuff in front of him and put a stopper on in his ink bottle. Ok, so maybe he wasn't pretending he was writing. But she was too busy drinking Alfie in to pay him any real attention. She knew that until Alfie knew what she was doing there and if the Shelbys were with her or not, he wouldn't risk killing her unprovoked and have the Blinders storm in.

"Is he serious?"

"Yes, Ma'am. Now, would you mind telling me where are ya staying? I need to tell Ishmael where to drive us."

There was no point in yelling at him. He wasn't the boss after all.

"Fine. But you tell Solomons that if my knife is in anything else than PERFECT condition, he'll have the pleasure of meeting its relatives!"

Ollie looked like would rather meet the relatives himself rather than tell his boss that.

He settled for nodding and ushering her out of the office so he could lock the door. He doubted Alfie was going to return that night.

She gave him the address of the place she had rented when she got to London a few days before and they drove in silence, each lost in their own thoughts.

The next morning, when she opened the door to go to the market, a beautifully wrapped rectangular box was waiting for her on the porch. Since the only one knowing where she was staying was Ollie and she had spied a wedding ring on his finger and baby puke on his shirt, well, she rather hoped it wasn't from him or Alfie Solomons would find himself a man short.

She bent down and walked back inside rather than open the box in broad daylight on a busy street.

She had been proven right when she opened the box and inside, nestled in soft, dark green velvet were two knives and a little handwritten note.

One of them was her own trusted knife that from a first glance looked to be exactly as it had been the day before, prior to meeting that hand.

The second one was another silver knife of the same length. She picked it up and held it in her hand for a few moments, weighing it. It had almost the same weight as her knife. It was a tall order since her own knife was a one of a kind, custom made and tailored to her weight and height and built. The handle was bone. Ivory by the feel of it. And an emerald that reminded Y/N of Alfie's eyes was nestled right above the line where the handle and the blade met.

It was a gorgeous knife and she loved it. Alfie Solomons knew how to give gifts.

She carefully put it back in the box and opened the note. The writing was neat and masculine. Just like the man himself.

"Treacle,

Be ready at 7. I'm taking you out.

P.S. I thought your knife could use a sister since I heard you say it had a brother. 

Alfie."


End file.
